Some design advice please!

jimmybeige

Hi,
just working on a site for myself in my spare time. Got most of it done, template for all the pages but have been struggling with the homepage and in particular the content in the middle after the menu bar.

I would like to point out that design is not my strong point! I struggle doing simple things, but am happy with most of it besides the content in the middle:

http://www.myhobbyireland.com

What's there at the moment is probably what needs to be there. Plus some follow me on twitter/facebook type of links. Just looks a bit poor at the moment.

Any advice appreciated and will make changes if I can!
Thanks

theg81der

Looks pretty cool young and fresh-are you aiming at that market? The blank space at the top always says cheap to me not sure how others handle that.
Only a user perspective not a designer only basic knowledge but I live on the net so thought I`d be able to offer my opinion that way. I would know it wasn`t professional but its very good for an amiteur.

jimmybeige

Thanks for the feedback. Not really thought about markets to be honest. Just wanted to keep it modern and simple I guess. One click, everything easy to find etc etc.

I could indeed reduce the margin at the top if people thought it looked bad.

theg81der

Looks like its aimed at the 12-21 age group, as an adult (28) if I was looking for a site like this I wouldn`t stop here - fonts to big, colours to fresh lacks sophistication.

Sorry trying to be constructive had a look for similar sites aimed at this age group or some community sites seem similar, can`t tell you what it is.

jimmybeige

Thanks for the feedback. As I mentioned I was hoping someone would give me a little advice as to what I should do rather than it's good/rubbish. I will remove the large fonts, coloured boxes etc. Any suggestions for replacements however?

tricky D

You should reduce that top margin, the whitespace is too big with no compelling purpose.

You could also trim the bottom of the cat-box by either reducing its height or removing the height and padding the elements for similar effect.

The upshot of doing this is you get more above the fold especially the sign-up and share elements.

Also get your spellchecker out (membersin, profilewith etc.).

gl/hth

jimmybeige

Cheers, I will reduce those margins. Nothing proofread or tested yet as I was just throwing out rough ideas with the homepage.

Any suggestions for the middle of the page which is the part I'm having most difficulty with? Kinda looks bad at the moment but not sure what to do with it.

Pixelcraft

Hi Jimmybeige,

Just as a general pointer, maybe something for next time - try to plan out all areas of a site before you build it. That way, you can easily discard an idea that didn't work, and mess around before any major time is invested. Then when you've nailed it you can begin building and only need to deal with the technical issues that may arise.

jimmybeige

Thanks Pixelcraft,
i'm not sure what you're referring to there? PLan out which parts of the site? The site is planned as far as I can see. I am just weak on design and didn't have the design done. I was working on the backend as I am not a designer. Are you saying I should have the homepage design done before I start working on the backend?

Pixelcraft

What I'm saying is, take a pencil & paper, and plan the site before you touch a computer and when everything is 100% then build. Now's the wrong time to be re-evaluating the design imo.

jimmybeige

Thanks Pixelcraft,
guess I figured I did had it planned out besides the homepage really which wasn't affecting my development.

Based on feedback here perhaps I should make a lot of changes to the design. Any suggestions while you're here?

Pixelcraft

Design doesn't really work like that. You said yourself you're not a designer, so tweaking it here and there may be satisfactory for what you need. Imo, design needs to be thought out and planned, and tweaking something which is inherently flawed (not talking about your link, just in a general sense) is not going to yield any great results.